Global warming tide turning, says (ready for this?) NY Times

Some news just can't be hidden from sight forever. The New York Times, no less, reports (emphasis ours):

"Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?"

"Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated."

It seems that a survey in February by the BBC found only 26 percent of Britons believed "climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade," down from 41 percent in November 2009. A German poll found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier.

That's a minority view now. A small minority.

London's Science Museum has announced a permanent exhibit scheduled to open later this year would be called the Climate Science Gallery - not the Climate Change Gallery as had previously been planned.

Oops. Do you sense a distancing from the discredited claims?

"Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem," Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace said.

Did we mention, oops?

Then there's this (emphasis ours): "For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis."

The historic Oxford Union Society, the world's premier debating society, considered the motion “That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change” by 135 votes to 110 after a debate sponsored by the Science and Public Policy Institute, Washington DC. During that debate, this delicious explanation was offered by Lord Christopher Monckton:

Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: “And your reference is?” Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.

Dare we say it? The emperor has no clothes and the commoners are figuring it out.

One last delicious tidbit from Monckton at the debate (Be sure to click through to read this one. It's a hoot):

Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers].

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